Automate or simplify post-install steps for Packaged Flows

Question

I am planning to add a few Flows to my Managed Packages. E.g.:

1. Record Triggered Flow Templates that detects certain conditions
2. Screen Flows that define UI for Slack notifications sent out from 1.)

Especially the Slack part of Flow depends heavily on hardcoded and org specific information like app, channel, user ids.

That is a problem because:

1. I need to harcode values for development and testing
2. I cannot hardcode that into the packaged flow because it will not work in the subscriber org
3. I don't want my customers to adjust 1001 little fields in my flows after installation
4. I must assume that my subscriber don't have Slack setup when installing my package

I am now looking for a way to streamline and minimize manual post install steps and also secure my Flow IP a bit.

What are ways to do that? I thought about:

• Tooling or Metadata API to update the flows
• Variables in Flow populated via Custom Metadata Types that change from org to org
• A Post Install Assistant that adjusts the flow from a nice custom UI

Answer 1

For the post-install step,

Let's clear the 2 terms first:

Salesforce Flow-in-Slack = the ability to expose screen-based SF Flows in the Slack UI. Instead of the Flow's screens being displayed in native SF Lightning UI at run-time, the screens are displayed as modals in Slack

Slack Workflows = a feature in Slack for creating the logic to interact with messages and external services

Salesforce Flows can be added to AppExchange managed packages and installed in salesforce org. However, Slack workflows cannot be added to managed packages.

After the package is installed, the Slack workplace admin has to create a workflow that exposes the packaged Flow to workplace users. There is no automated way to do it.

I do want to add that I am not familiar enough with Slack API. There may be an option to create/configure workflows. If that is possible then you could add functionality in your package to use that API. You will need to talk to the Slack team about that.

For the other question,

You already have the answer. You can use custom metadata or custom settings; depending on whether you want to supply default values in the package (custom metadata) or want customers to have unique values (custom settings).

You can provide a setup screen to add/update those values. You may also need to account for multiple workplaces as the same app and same org can be used from multiple workplaces.

Answer 2

You should probably use either custom metadata or custom settings for this.

Custom metadata has the advantage that you can deliver values with the package install, but it sounds like you don't necessarily want that since the values will be different for each customer.

Custom settings seem like a good choice for you - and ideally you'd build an admin page with the ability to set the settings there rather than needing to go into SF setup to do so.